Reuters news editors disciplined over FBI visit

Talking Biz News reported on Monday that my former boss and two other former colleagues were disciplined after a federal grand jury indicted me on allegations unrelated to my work at Thomson Reuters.

Reuters news editors Anthony De Rosa, Kenneth Li and Robert MacMillan received written reprimands from Thomson Reuters according to a report published Monday by Chris Roush. According to Roush, the three editors failed to notify anyone at the company when they learned from me that the FBI had raided my New Jersey apartment in relation to a criminal investigation on October 4, 2012.

The report says all three continue to work for the company, though Li was removed as an editor for Reuters.com and now works in a different part of the company.

The article calls into question how personnel files are handled at Thomson Reuters regarding workplace misconduct and employee discipline. On March 14, 2013, a Reuters reporter received information from a source that I had been disciplined after creating a short-lived parody Twitter account off company time that poked fun at a Google executive.

According to Roush’s report, the reprimands involving the three Reuters editors were not common knowledge in the Reuters newsroom.

Roush reached out to me over the weekend for a statement. Here is what I told him:

“I am surprised to learn the company disciplined three of my former colleagues. If true, the company’s assertion that my colleagues failed to notify anyone at Thomson Reuters about the incident is inconsistent with what I was told in October 2012.”